More Basquiat work is included in the new group show on New York in the 1980s, “Your History is Not Our History” at the Manhattan Haunch of Venison gallery. Basquiat began his SAMO graffiti in the late 1970s, but all his painting was done in the 1980s. In this show Basquiat is put in the company of neo-expressionist painters Julian Schnable and Eric Fischl, and curator David Salle, along with artists like Sherrie Levine, or Barbara Kruger, often shown as part of an opposite and opposed movement of critical Post-Modern appropriation artists. Some of the first work Barbara Kruger showed in New York was at Annina Nosie’s group show “Public Address,” also Basquiat’s first showing in a conventional gallery. “Your History is Not Our History” puts these artists together to give a flavor or the radicalism and rejection of authority supposedly seen in art of the time, in opposition to Museum shows like the recent “Pictures Generation” at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, more interested in defining movements. Artist Richard Phillips, who was just beginning his career in the 1980s, and co-currated the show with David Salle, said "You're able to see combination of work that no museum will ever show you. They well tell you that these were mutually exclusive events that are pre-packaged in isms."

Basquiat is represented by two works from 1982. An untitled head of oilstick and paper collage fits into the neo-expressionist category, without showing his often ignored connections to the more critical work with appropriation and text also going on in this period. More to the point was Trunk (pictured), one of the acrylic and oilstick on canvas supported on the 72” square overlapping wooden stretchers produced by his assistant Stephan Torton. With its bilingual text, and childlike rendering of anatomical illustrations it hints at these connections, but one of his more politically pointed works would have been even more appropriate and stimulating here. The absence of the 1980s work of Jenny Holzer is also a disappointment in a show of this theme, and could have helped in cutting through the painting /photography division.

Much of the more intellectual critical opinion of 80s painters engaging with the figure (including Basquiat but even more so of artists like Schnabel), is that they were overhyped by a out of control art market. Many saw them as a reactionary retreat from the more challenging avant-guard of post-minimalism, created for a new yuppie art audience. The same critics most vocally attacking painting of the period were the biggest champions of the text and photographic work of Kruger, Levine, Cindy Sherman, et al. Yet the commonalities (such as use of language and political comment in Holzer and Basquiat) , the incorporation of past art and present popular culture in so many of the artists, and later developments (i.e. the transformation of Cindy Sherman’s photography from faux retro black and white film stills to large color spectacles), makes it hard to see how such a firm line could be drawn between reactionary and progressive arts. “We reject the sterilized view that is offered in hindsight and hope to offer a more accurate portrayal of the energy and experimentation that was permeating the city during that time," says Richard Phillips. While the exhibition is right to highlight some commonalities of artists in 80s New York working in critically walled off movements, it is also presenting a one-sided view of the “historical consciousness” of this “original and inventive” work.

There is an ambiguity in many of the painters, especially Basquiat, between self-regarding expressionism and critical approach to depiction, between political opposition and acceptance of the market. This is mirrored in an ambiguity between criticism and spectacle, and in the viewer’s relation to the represented image, in much of the critical post-modernism of the photographers. There is certainly something to the claim of the relation of the hot art market to the 1980s and the kind of art produced in the times. The relationship may have been oversimplified in the past, but does not mean it should be ignored.

At least this show gives a step towards a needed reassessment of the artistic period across the genres, in a way that more academic shows like “The Pictures Generation” ignored. They are not the first to do this, Allison Pearlman’s book Unpackaging Art of the 1980s did a lot to help counter the view of the 1980s as divided into opposing camps. This takes that idea back into the galleries and curatorial realm, but in a rather triumphalist and uncritical way.  There still needs much more to be done in re assessing this period, in art history, criticism and the curating of exhibitions.  

The Exhibition "Your History is Not Our History" is open through May 1 at Haunch of Venision, 1230 6^th Avenue (between 48th and 49th St. 20th floor), Manhattan. http://www.haunchofvenison.com/en/#page=newyork

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Coincidentally (?) Basquiat, and the decade, is also getting a overview in “The 80s revisited,” Kunsthalle Bielefeld Artur-Ladebeck-Strasse5, Bielefeld, Germany). This two part exhibition, based on the collection of Zurich-based gallery owner Bruno Bischofberger (who was a major dealer for Basquiat for most of the 80s) tells a more traditional story of the “radical revival of painting.” The first part (March 21 – June 20^th, 2010) shows Keith Haring in the company of the Europeans Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Rainer Fetting, Salomé, etc. The second part, in 2011, will put Jean-Michel Basquiat in the context of New York 1980s art stars with Andy Warhol and Julian Schnabel. What new perspective this will give on the 1980s is hard to tell, but the commercial reasons for the exhibitions are obvious. http://www.mutualart.com/Organization/Kunsthalle-Bielefeld/876C468C0742BCAC